Erdoğan accused of crippling democracy with hundreds from judiciary, media and civil service still detained after coup attempt

Nesrin Şimşek remembers in vivid detail the moment she was released from prison and was reunited with her infant son. “I cried for a month after I saw my baby again,” recalled the former Turkish judge. “He had given up breastfeeding while I was in jail, and in every dream I saw my child, and I was trying to give him milk.”

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has intensified its rhetoric against the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) “justice march” from Ankara to Istanbul, claiming that it is “susceptible to the abuse of terrorist actions.”